


A Darker Shade of Gray

by oonaseckar



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Workplace Relationship, Workplace Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22525741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Dexter isn't looking for sweet romance.  But maybe neither is LaGuerta.
Relationships: Debra Morgan & Dexter Morgan, Dexter Morgan & Lumen Pierce, Maria LaGuerta/Dexter Morgan, Rita Bennett/Dexter Morgan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	1. I just met a girl named Maria

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title is from West Side Story.

She's so easy to please, everything he does seems to please her. It certainly makes a change from Rita. When Maria corners him at his desk after hours, when he's trying to match up the spatter from the the Ice Truck Killer's known kills with the latest evidence, it's certainly not for the first time.

But it's the first time he's felt any inclination to follow the path she's trying to lead him along. On the edge of his desk, her ass provides plenty of comfortable padding to protect her from its sharp edges. He's surprised to find himself noticing. Rita's a trembling, neurotic, semi-anorectic bundle of bones, after all -- following an intermittent tradition of his bed partners. So he assumed that that was just his type. As far as he had one.

'I hear you're having marital troubles, Dexter,' she says, churning out a brisk approximation of sympathy, to take her wherever she's hell-bent on going.

One brow rises: it's the minimum response he can get away with. Facial expressions, such a useful substitute for conversation, comprehension, interaction. He blesses the day he found out about that.

'Still not married,' he points out, focusing on his screen.

'I know.' LaGuerta pats his hand: then just lets it rest there, on his. When she squeezes it, she doesn't hold back. It's more like a handshake from an asshole with something to prove, a trace of pain involved. It's not like it exactly turns him on: it just compels his attention, makes him take another look.

He doesn't have to hold back with Rita any more: she can take his straight-ahead first past the post undiluted sexual style, and in fact likes it. It's a revelation that such women exist, and a relief: it's the only release he can get between kills, and there would be more bodies at the bottom of the harbour, out in the open sea, without it. The trouble is, her tolerance, her hardiness doesn't extend to their non-carnal activities. She needs protecting from all kinds of things. Which is fine, it's a shield of sorts: the noise, the hum of activity surrounding his protection of Rita, it covers him. It covers who and what he is.

It requires continual faking. He didn't train as an actor, and it's a continual strain.

LaGuerta edges forward, and with the slightest encouragement she'd be in his lap. He'd have to fight her off, and the prospect isn't all that disagreeable. He can't think of anything she'd need protecting from: not anything he wouldn't be running from himself. He wouldn't have to play the protective male: she has enough sense and experience to know the fallibility of men, and their fears. No more pretense of invulnerability, no more being Daddy.

How restful it sounds. He didn't know he was so tired, until now. 'Want to get a drink?' he asks.


	2. suddenly that name, will never be the same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dexter, uxoriously engaging in an extra-marital affair. With LaGuerta. Who saw _that_ coming?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from West Side Story.

Dex has never been famed for his singing voice. Debs throws things if he even shows a hint of tuning up and getting ready to let the old pipes go. But Maria seems to like it –- to like indulging him –- as he leans up in bed the morning after, humming show-tunes. She bangs pantie drawers and hoicks on stockings and suspender belt, toe on the bed and a startling eyeful on view.

There'll be hell to pay with Rita. There's _always_ hell to pay with Rita.

'Aren't _you_ in a happy mood,' she observes, still posed there with one leg up, resplendent and a little overwhelming in her bra and panties. LaGuerta is a woman who _understands_ lingerie. There's not a trace of androgyny or tomboy in her entire nature: all the hardass competent driven man-managing leader of subordinates in her is pure _bitch_. In the nicest possible way.

'Why wouldn't I be?' he asks, as she pulls on her blouse, butt swaying and twitching. But there's a trace of unease in his mind just the same. This is something good: he let it happen to him as much as he lets any regular quotidian aspect of his life happen, but it's still good. It can't mean no Rita, though. Mostly because no Rita means no kids, and those kids are _his_ kids now. Paul or no Paul.

xxx

So it's clandestine arrangements, intermittent nights where Rita doesn't know where he is, or thinks she does but is mistaken. It's not like it makes much difference. There have always been the times she's unsure of his whereabouts: the reason varies now, that's all.

He figures he has a type after all, a fairly all-encompassing one: the type that can cope with him. Rita's coping skills are narrow: but he can't imagine much fazing Maria, bar the obvious exception. If he tried to hold her hand through life she'd slap it off, regarding it as a hindrance in her route to her holster, her credit card, the steering wheel. His attraction for LaGuerta is more of a mystery. But he thinks that being smart, nerdy, and something approaching her definition of attractive covers it, and is sufficient. He suspects her of suspecting him of a moral innocence, and it's too tender and dear for a smile, even.

She would have probably liked for him to be a virgin, or something close to it, he rather suspects. It's a pity he hadn't realized it before she knew too much about his sexual history. He would have been quite happy to play along and be educated by a woman of the world, rich in experience. He rarely has objections to satisfying people's more innocent desires.

He's fond of her, already. It took so much longer with Rita.


End file.
